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18362 |
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Date: January 08, 2023 at 15:51:12
From: akira, [DNS_Address]
Subject: Great Salt Lake Could be gone in 5 Years |
URL: https://www.juancole.com/2023/01/environmental-climate-catastrophe.html |
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Great Salt Lake Could be gone in 5 Years: Huge Environmental Climate
Catastrophe, Arsenic Dust Storms
JUAN COLE
01/08/2023
Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – Excessive water use is draining the Great
Salt Lake so quickly that at this rate, it could be gone in as little as five years.
So argue Benjamin W. Abbott and Bonnie K. Baxter, et al. in a new scientific
paper.
The Great Salt Lake is already not what it was. The lake is 19 feet below its
average height. It has lost 73% of its water and its surface area has shrunk by
60%. One of the favors this body of water does its surroundings is to
suppress the toxic dust that would fly around in a dry basin of this sort.
The authors point out that the lake provides “habitat for more than 10 million
migratory birds and wildlife throughout the Wasatch Front. Almost 350 bird
species depend on Great Salt Lake habitats.”
This role of wetlands such as those around the lake has become even more
crucial as others have dried up. The U.S. West is suffering from two decades
of mega-drought that has been made substantially longer and more intense
by the climate crisis.
Human over-use of the waters of the lake is the main cause of its
desiccation, but that over-use is driven in part by the increased heat and
aridity of the region.
The paper argues that the lake provides at least $2.5 billion a year to the
Utah economy. The moisture it puts into the air falls as snow, increasing the
snow pack for skiing by some 20%. Salt and minerals are extracted from it,
as well as brine shrimp.
Because the lake has less water in it, the level of its saltiness has increased
by nearly a fifth, which could start killing off the brine shrimp, which are used
as fish food and are a major economic product of the region.
At the same time, a dry lake bed of this sort contains toxins, including loads
of arsenic, that winds will blow around in the area, making for a major health
concern.
When Owens Lake in California dried up after Los Angeles diverted its water
there, local residents were exposed to high amounts of fine particulate
matter, which causes asthma and lung problems.
A similar fate may await the residents of Salt Lake City.
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Responses:
[18363] [18364] |
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18363 |
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Date: January 08, 2023 at 19:09:43
From: eaamon, [DNS_Address]
Subject: Re: Great Salt Lake Could be gone in 5 Years |
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I reported on this last year when I drove through there in July.
the water use to come up to I-80 hiway side road.
the water was over one mile from shore then.
I guess one can hope the enormous rains hitting the West coast make it there.
so many rivers world wide have dried up, I feel/fear the
waters all ended up in the oceans
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Responses:
[18364] |
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18364 |
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Date: January 10, 2023 at 04:42:43
From: akira, [DNS_Address]
Subject: Re: Great Salt Lake Could be gone in 5 Years |
URL: http://earthboppin.net/talkshop/geology/messages/96559.html |
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Redhart posted some hopeful news for the state...
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